The influence of top management support for ICTs on organisational performance through knowledge acquisition,transfer, and utilisation

This research analyses, first, whether top management support for information and communications technologies has positive consequences for knowledge management by analysing the specific influence of top management support for ICTs on each of the knowledge management processes (knowledge acquisition, transfer, and utilisation). Second, it analyses the influence of each knowledge management process on organisational performance. The theoretical model is tested using data collected from March to May 2010 from 201 CEOs in Spanish technology organisations. The results indicate that the stage-based disaggregation of the knowledge management process into knowledge acquisition, transfer, and utilisation, and the three-stage management process are the mediating mechanisms in the relationship between top management support for ICTs and organisational performance. CEOs should thus support the information and communication technologies necessary to improve all of the interrelated stages of knowledge management as a mechanism for achieving better organisational performance. Various strategic actions should be stimulated within the organisation to intensify the interrelation between these stages of acquisition, transfer, and utilisation of knowledge.     

DEA-Like Efficiency Ranking of Regional Health Systems in Spain

The last decades have witnessed an increasing international concern in assessing how efficiently health care resources are used in producing health. At a country level, comparing the efficiency of regional health systems and ranking the regions accordingly promotes transparency policies and represents an important incentive for the design and implementation of specific programs aimed at improving the quality of health care services within the country. The use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) as a tool for efficiency analysis in the health sector is well-established, but its use with a ranking purpose is discouraged due to lack of discrimination and comparability issues. Using data from the competent health authority in Spain, the purpose of this study is to assess the efficiency of the regional health systems in Spain and identify those regions that are using their health care inputs more efficiently than others, given the observed level of health outcomes. To this aim, a DEA-based model that operates under a common weights basis is used in order to improve discrimination and establish a common scale for a proper comparison of the regional health systems in Spain that can be subsequently ranked by their efficiency score.     

Being Working Poor or Feeling Working Poor? The Role of Work Intensity and Job Stability for Subjective Poverty

Social Indicators Research - Low work intensity and high job instability are crucial micro-determinants of in-work poverty. Importantly, they might also affect subjective poverty in households that...     

Access to social services as a rite of integration: Power,rights, and identity

Access to social services is a multifaceted and multifactorial process, involving social policy lines, services organization, and professional front line practices. It appears to have a crucial role in how personal social services work: depending on the way the process is handled, access to social services could provide a bridge to an inclusive and solidarizing community or worsen discrimination and marginalization. Many underline how studying the actual encounters between citizens and practitioners can provide a privileged site to highlight the interconnections between the abovementioned factors. This is the focus of our research that explored access in a specific Italian region using a case study strategy. After a pilot study, the main points of access to social services were identified, and three units were selected as best examples of different approaches. The three units were explored using mainly qualitative methods inspired by ethnography. We were able to gain in depth understanding of three cultural approaches to access, defined as the “ethical duty,” the “good organization,” and the “professional approach” and reach an in‐depth understanding of their impact on access. There is a vast literature on the power of street‐level bureaucrats, seen as similar to gatekeepers. However, our research suggests that specific organizational cultures also play an important part: different organizational cultures may impact the implementation of local social policy, the organizational procedures, and social workers' practices.     

Discovering associations between players' performance indicators and matches' results in the European Soccer Leagues

The application of data mining techniques and statistical analysis to the sports field has received increasing attention in the last decade. One of the most famous sports in the world is soccer, and the present work deals with it, using data from the 2009/2010 season to the 2015/2016 season from nine European leagues extracted from the Kaggle European Soccer database. Overall performance indicators of the four roles in a soccer team (forward, midfielder, defender and goalkeeper) for home and away teams are used to investigate the relationships between them and the results of matches, and to predict the wins of the home team. The model used to answer both these demands is the Bayesian Network. This study shows that this model can be very useful for mining the relations between players'' performance indicators and for improving knowledge of the game strategies applied by coaches in different leagues. Moreover, it is shown that the ability to predict match results of the proposed Bayesian Network is roughly the same as that of the Naive Bayes model.     

Testing a Model of Trade Union Behaviour: An Application of a Multivariate Cointegration Analysis to UK Aggregate Wage Data

ABSTRACT The first part of the paper considers a behavioural model of trade unionism. Wages and employment are characterized as the outcome of a process by which the union maximizes an objective function containing wages and employment as arguments, and is constrained by a trade-off between these two variables as represented by the firm's labour demand function. In the second part, the model's equilibrium predictions for wages are estimated in the framework of a multivariate error correction model and tested for cointegration with data from Britain's manufacturing sector from 1967 to 1986.     

Followers and leaders: Reciprocity,social norms and group behavior

This paper proposes a model of norm-driven preferences and studies the determinants of norm compliance in games. It predicts that (i) compliance follows a law of demand and (ii) people respect norms in a reciprocal manner: they are more likely to comply if others are expected to comply too. Reciprocal norm compliance might explain why successful revolutions or strikes grow in a snow-balled fashion, leaders motivate others to join social movements, or sequential mechanisms (instead of simultaneous ones) are usually employed in charity fundraising.     

Retirement migration and transnationalism in northern Mexico

This article examines the phenomenon of transnationalism among retired immigrants living in border areas of northern Mexico. Using in-depth interviews conducted with US retirees residing in Baja California, Mexico, we seek to examine how transnational aging is constructed through different practices, relationships, networks and exchanges between both cultures and countries. We analyse several analytical dimensions of transnationalism including social, economic, cultural, identity and belonging conditions. In particular, networks and exchanges among these elderly migrants are most frequently constructed across social and family networks, economic transfers, access to healthcare, and culture. Additionally, we find that these maintained transnational practices in northern Mexico parallel those of international retired migrants living in other parts of the world. However, we argue that the proximity to the US border enables and encourages many types of connections of varying intensities. Finally, we discuss the implications for future research linking transnationalism with international retirement migration.     

Legalization and human capital accumulation

This paper presents new evidence regarding the effects of legalization on the training of immigrants who were granted legal status through the US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. Our findings point to a large increase in the immigrants’ incidence of training relative to comparable groups of natives following legalization. While training gains are higher for males, wage gains are higher for females. We also show that an important part of these changes in labor market outcomes occurs through occupation changes by newly legalized immigrants.